Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!ucbvax!CS.WISC.EDU!hagens
From: hagens@CS.WISC.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains
Subject: Re: Proposal for use of DNS to store RFC 987, etc mappings
Message-ID: <9007271949.AA12925@janeb.cs.wisc.edu>
Date: 27 Jul 90 18:49:20 GMT
References: <9007271704.AA19586@bel.isi.edu>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 34


> 
> 
> I really don't understand at all what Stef is getting at by "we cannot
> build a system that requires full network connectivity for every gateway".
> It seems crazy to me to imagine that we can have a gateways that are not
> connected to the network.  
Jon,

I also found this hard to accept at first. But may I suggest the following
scenario:

There may be RFC 822 users on a "small internet" somewhere in the world, whose
only email path into the Internet we know is via an X.400 mail system.
In this scenerio, the isolated RFC 822 users would require an RFC 987/...
gateway to operate, but that gateway would not have DNS access.

I really can't say how contrived this scenerio truly is.

> And if "there will always be some significant
> set of hosts that will not have full network connectivity", lets be sure
> not to use them as gateways, and lets be sure that while we provide for
> them we do not limit the connected hosts to the lowest common denominator
> of mechanisms and procedures.

I agree with your last sentence; I believe that the DNS can greatly assist the
987 gateways that are connected to it. It seems that this benefit outweighs
the hassel of producing a "hosts.txt" on a periodic basis for those 
non-connected sites.

This *will* be a discussion item for the IETF-OSI-OR WG at the Vancouver IETF.
(Thursday AM).

Rob